Love has a history and we ride - sometimes rather helplessly - on its currents. Since around 1750, we have been living in a highly distinctive era in the history of love that we can call Romanticism. And it has been a disaster for love. Relationships challenges the assumptions of the Romantic view of love. It shows how to develop new attitudes that can lead to a psychologically mature vision of love.

We know that our minds are capable of great things because, every now and then, they come out with a brilliant idea or two. However, our minds are also unpredictable, spending large stretches of time idling or distracting themselves. This is a book about how to optimize these beautiful yet fitful instruments so that they can more regularly and generously produce the sort of insights and ideas we need to fulfill our potential and achieve the contentment we deserve.

We probably went to school for what felt like a very long time. We probably took care with our homework. Along the way we surely learned intriguing things about equations, the erosion of glaciers, the history of the Middle Ages, and the tenses of foreign languages. But why, despite all the lessons we sat through, were we never taught the really important things that dominate and trouble our lives: who to start a relationship with, how to trust people, how to understand one’s psyche, how to move on from sorrow or betrayal, and how to cope with anxiety and shame?

In Ancient Greece, when the philosopher Socrates was asked to sum up what all philosophical commandments could be reduced to, he replied: "Know yourself". Self-knowledge matters so much because it is only on the basis of an accurate sense of who we are that we can make reliable decisions - particularly around love and work. This book takes us on a journey into our deepest, most elusive selves and arms us with a set of tools to understand our characters properly.

When trying to deal with our current troubles and anxieties, it can be deeply irritating to be asked to consider our childhoods. They happened so long ago; we can probably barely remember, let alone relate to, the little person we once were. But one of the most powerful explanations for why we may, as adults, be struggling, is that we were denied the opportunity to fully be ourselves in our earliest years. This book is a guide to better understanding our younger selves in order to shape who we wish to be in the future.